First, is the idea that function does not in any way determine the form, that is the
divorcing of form and function in these houses. This has previously been referred to
as ‘morphocentrisim’ in contrast to ‘anthrocentrisim’, that is a form-centred view of
the universe rather than a humanist view (Major, 1993). What does this imply? Let
us suggest the following: that in doing a space syntax study of these houses we should
not be able to discern any spatial or functional pattern to their structure, i.e. it should
be random, both within the houses and across the sample. Second, is the suggestion
by Eisenman that formal differentiation leads to spatial differentiation, what we could
term a correspondence model of form and space. Intuitively this would seem to be
an obvious truth due to the independence of the physical and the spatial in the built
environment - change the physical attributes of a building (i.e. move a wall) you
change the spatial pattern. This is something which we do everyday, for example in
refurbishment. What should we then expect? Based on what Eisenman says, we would
expect to find strong spatial differentiation in these houses, not only globally across
the system but even locally from one space to the next. We can measure this by using
'difference factor' (Hillier et al, 1992). We want to keep these two ideas front and
centre since they are so obviously a tenet of Eisenman’s ‘conjecture.’